Sit, Stand & Down

Exciting distractions such as other dogs will undermine your dog’s obedience training, so it’s important to incorporate them into training.

Giving calm, clear hand lures can be hard for children that aren’t much taller than their wriggly puppies, but with a little supervision they can make excellent trainers.

Practice your distance sits while your dog is roaming, sniffing, and not paying particular attention to you.  If you’re in an unconfined place, you can practice with a very long leash.

With energetic, wriggly pups, make your luring movements slow and deliberate.  When luring a sit, don’t lift it too high or they’ll jump up.  Instead, move it camly back over their head.

Positions changes are the foundation of dog training.  Start by luring your dog with a food treat, and pretty soon they will learn to follow the movements of your hand.  Once your dog has learned the hand signal, you can teach them the word.

Distance commands take lots of practice.  Build up distance step-by-step and make sure you continue to praise it when they get it right.

With your pup used to following the lure in your hand they’ll be ready to learn to follow hand signals.  Make your signals clear and crisp.

The best way to improve sits and and recalls is with lots of short training sessions filled with many quick repetitions.  If they get stuck, try luring them from the ground.

There are times your dog won’t want to train.  On these occasions you can reward good performance with an early end to the training session.  Also, Ian shows how to use two hands to alternately heel and sit your dog.

Make your food treats tiny, and if your commands aren’t working, try it more emphatically.  Use a stern tone, a hand signal or an exciting lure.  But if you need to use a food treat to lure them at this point, then they shouldn’t receive it as a reward.